The Two Chinas

A little follow-up on the Dalai-Lama situation in here in Germany. As I reported before, German chancellor Merkel had an official meeting with the spiritual leader in the chancellery. Since then, China has been showing its opposition to the meeting by cancelling just about every upcoming meeting. For days now, China has not commented on the actual reason for the cancellation, but merely stated "technical difficulties". That is, until today, when the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jian Yu finally spoke what everyone knew already. So, as there was an official statement, it is always interesting to see what the newspapers have to say. Even more interesting is the comparison of mainland news with Hong Kong news, which can be said to have a free press.

Merkel's meeting with Dalai Lama was not only a rude interference into China's internal affairs and strongly hurt the feelings and emotions of the Chinese people, but also gravely harmed China-Germany relations, Jiang stressed.

And compare this to what The Standard from Hong Kong has to say:

The event was cancelled in apparent retaliation for Merkel's decision to hold an historic meeting with the Dalai Lama in Berlin on Sunday, becoming the first chancellor to receive the exiled Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader.
Merkel used her talks with the Buddhist leader to express support for his peaceful quest for cultural autonomy for Tibet, which Chinese soldiers occupied in 1950.

I tried to comment on the article on the China Daily website, but unsurprisingly it seems my post became the victim of censorship. Oh well, I guess I shouldn't have mentioned the "free world"